In just the fourth year of having a girls lacrosse team, the Ware Academy Waves completed “an absolutely amazing season,”said coach Andy Morgan.

“The girls simply rocked. They continued to improve and impress during the entire season, as they rose to every challenge that was put in front of them,” said Morgan.

The Ware Academy girls finished the season with a 13-0 record.

Ware completed their last week of the season with three wins, none of them bigger than their victory over Collegiate on April 29. Collegiate fields three middle school girls lacrosse teams, and put their top team on the field to face Ware in the two schools season final match-up.

The Waves quickly jumped on the Cougars with goals by Isabelle Turner and Madison Thomas in the first two minutes of the game for an early 2-0 lead.

Collegiate rallied to take a 7-4 lead at the half.

The Waves made a commitment during halftime to raise their level of play and to come out in the second half with more intensity. Ware wasted little time showing Collegiate that they were in for a battle as Kelsee Oliver scooped up the first ground ball of the half, attacked the offensive zone and delivered a beautiful pass to a cutting Thomas who netted her second goal of the game.

Minutes later, Caroline Henderson found Kelly Nelson open on the weak side for her first of 4 goals on the day.

As the Waves continued to beat the Cougars to ground balls, intercept transition breaks and control possessions, they began to take over the momentum of the game. Nelson struck again with 2 more quick goals, both coming on her underhanded sweep shot, to give Ware an 8-7 advantage.

After a timeout by Collegiate, Ware picked up right where they left off as Caitlin Blankenship, Sarah Grace Hurley, Shelby Ware, Emily Brown and Henderson consistently shut down several transition and offensive opportunities by the Cougars.

Oliver gave Ware a little cushion as she took her defender one-on-one and placed the ball in the bottom left corner of the net to put Ware up by two points.

It would be Ware’s goalie Allison Scribe who would come up with some monster saves down the stretch to help her team hold off the Cougars’ late charge. Scribe posted 13 saves for the game with 4 of them coming from point blank range at critical times.

Nelson took a pass from Heidi Ruse and scored what proved to be the winning goal with just 43 seconds remaining. The Waves won 11-10.

The final game of the Waves’ season came on May 2 when they faced Steward School. Ware did not disappoint the crowd at their home field. The Waves gave a dominating performance, never leaving the game in doubt as they posted a 9-5 win behind another standout performance from goalie Scribe, who frustrated the Spartans top shooters with several big saves.

Scribe finished her three-year career in the net for the Waves with one of her best performances, posting 12 saves. Along with Scribe, fellow 8th-graders Hurley, Oliver, Isabelle Turner and Ware will be missed as they move on to high school next year. “Our eighth grade girls have done an awesome job in building our girls lacrosse program with each of their contributions as a captain, player and person,” said Coach Morgan. “We thank them and will miss them.”